A Comfortable Life

During those four years I grew accustomed to the sword and I was now the most skilled individual in the village. I could defeat anyone whenever I sparred and I also grew familiar with other weapons such as the bow and spear. Although I was friendly with Sothis she was asleep most of the time and at the moment was only awake during interesting moments.

I quickly grew friendly with the villagers. Something else was that even though I am mentally older then the other kids I even made some friends. Right now I am in the forest with my sister and two of her friends. Since we were in a manga that meant unlike real life your younger siblings actually admire the older ones most of the time. In this case my sister had seen my skill with weapons and asked me to teach her how to hunt. I at first refused but when she pulled the puppy eyes out I couldn't say no.

"Onii Chan, can we go now?" Elana asked clearly impatient.

"In a minute, I'm still grabbing my things." I replied as I grabbed a bow and strapped a quiver full of arrows to my back.

"C'mon Elana, give your brother a little bit of time. He offered to teach us after all. Besides, I can't wait to learn how to shoot." Elana's friend Nathaniel said.

Yeah Elana, it's not like you have a boyfriend waiting in the woods for you." Elana's other friend Sofia teased.

Elana rolled her eyes and shot back at Sofia and the two started to bicker. I sighed, it's time to step in.

"Alright girls its time to leave. I will put you both in timeout if you don't stop this."

Then I turned to Nathaniel, the only other guy in the group.

"I am counting on you to help keep the peace between these two. Fail and you get another sparring session."

Nathaniel looked like he wanted to cry as he remembered the last time we sparred. He had challenged me to a fight so that he would look cool in front of the ladies. So in order to prevent any future challenges with the same mindset I made sure to give him a good beating. Physically he recovered just fine but Mentally? He is still scared to this day. I may of gone too far.

After we were all ready to go we started to make our way to the edge of a nearby forest and of course before we left the village I made sure to go over some basic rules to guarantee their safety. While I was doing this an old lady who lived in a nearby house saw us preparing to go.

"You all stay safe out there, you hear me?" She said.

"Yes Ma'am, you have no need to worry." I replied.

I then turned away and started walking toward the forest and the others followed. As we left the old woman looks at us as if remembering a lost memory. She smiled and went back inside the house.

We marched through the woods as I thought over our plan for the day. For the first half of the day I want to hunt some sort of animal to give the others some sort of example of what to do. Afterward I plan to bring them to the shooting range to get the hang of archery for the second half of the day.

Now I say shooting range but it's really just a log with a target carved on it. The target is full of holes from arrows piercing the log and probably will need to be replaced after today. Luckily I requested my father to ask a friend of his who's good at carving to carve another target.

As we marched I kept an eye out and sure enough, I saw the fresh tracks of a rabbit. I I grinned, I wasn't sure I was going to catch anything today and that would of made me look bad in front of my sister. Now Byleth himself had never learned how to hunt but I was taught how to by the hunters in the village.

"Shhh, I think we are drawing close to our dinner." I said to them.

Hearing this they quickly became quiet and stared at me as I spotted the rabbit. I drew an arrow from my quiver and nocked the arrow. Then I slowly pulled back the string and aimed at the rabbit. After making sure I was going to hit the target I let go and watched the arrow fly. The rabbit perked it's head up just in time to get an arrow to the face.

Sofia cried out when the arrow hit the rabbit. " Did we really have to kill it?"

I rolled my eyes and responded. "Would you like to go hungry tonight? You hav eaten rabbit before, where do you think it came from?"

I made my way to the rabbit and dug out the arrow to see if it was still usable but the tip was busted. I sighed and looked back at my quiver. I had 10 arrows left, I would need to make more soon.

"Alright, now that we have hunted I am going to bring you all to the shooting range. Once we get there I am going to drop off the meat at the village and come back. Sound like a plan?" I said.

"Sure!" They responded.

"Great!" I smiled

We hiked through the woods until we reached a small clearing. At the other side of the clearing there was a stump and on that stump there stood a log with a small target on it. I brought the others to the middle of the field and then I turned to them.

"Now stay here ok? I will be back." I said sternly and after making sure they heard me I made my way back towards the village. I was about sunset at this point and we had spent most of our day in the woods. As I hiked I reached a small hill that overlooked the village and what I saw made me freeze in fear because what I saw was a massacre.